Heroes
by Maid Malcolm
Summary: Garfield and Cassie are tired of being undervalued on the Team. They set out to prove that they're competent heroes.


"Not now, Gar."

Garfield spread his wings and took to the sky. He didn't think anybody would really notice that he'd left. No one ever did, unless they wanted to nag him to do chores or something. He was just so sick of being the little kid.

It wasn't fair, really. He was a hero. He wasn't in the league of his sister or Nightwing or anything, but he could hold his own and he went on missions and stuff. He was older than Superboy and he'd been on the Team longer than some of the others and he'd grown up on a ranch so he knew how to look after himself as well as most city grown-ups; why couldn't he get any respect? Obviously everyone on the Team was great and they all had different skills and a lot of them were out of his league, but why was he singled out as 'the kid'?

It was because he looked younger, he was sure of it. Not that that should matter for a shapeshifter, but somehow it did.

He was drifting aimlessly over the ocean when he spied something drifting in and out of the clouds in the distance. It didn't move like a bird or an aircraft. In the sky, it was impossible to tell the size or distance... might be trouble. He headed straight for it.

Nope. Wonder Girl. She was darting in and out of clouds, seemingly with no goal other than to destroy the clouds themselves. And she looked angry about it. Garfield flew into her field of vision, and she halted in surprise.

"Gar? What are you doing out here?"

"Caw!"

Cassie glanced down and around, but there was no land in sight. She held out her arms instead. "Shift back and talk to me."

He shifted in her arms. As soon as he had a humanlike mouth, he said, "Just out for a joyride. You?"

"Yeah. Yeah, same."

"Doesn't look very joyful."

"It's nothing important. I should... probably head back towards Happy Harbour anyway."

"Yeah. Me too."

Cassie turned and flew back towards the Harbour, carrying Garfield. "Do you ever feel like you're not really a part of this team?

"Only, like, ALL THE TIME."

"I know, right?"

Garfield blinked at her. "What are you talking about? You're one of the heavy hitters. You always get to do the cool stuff, and nobody leaves you out of stuff because you're a kid and tells you to clean your room or do your homework or go away and let the grownups talk. They treat you like a real superhero. I'm just a kid."

"What? No. They treat _you_ like a superhero, I'm just a rookie. Everyone trusts you to know what you're doing. With me it's all 'did you remember to take a communicator, Cass?' 'Don't forget you need to train, Cass.' 'Hey Cass, you should come help recruit the latest member because you're the newest we have right now!' Yeah, because I'm new I'm either an idiot or some kind of token rookie advisor. And you have friends and family and stuff here, I'm still trying to figure out if Batgirl even likes me."

"You know what we should do?"

"What?"

"We should totally go foil some crime or something. Show them we can do the job properly."

"Yeah. Yeah, we should."

* * *

Crime wasn't as easy to find in Happy Harbour as Beast Boy had thought it would be.

They waited for it to get dark. They hung around alleys, and behind bars (but not too close to bars; the angry glares of Miss Martian and Wonder Woman were on their minds), waiting. A couple had a brief argument. A cat wandered by and hissed at Beast Boy. Someone parked their car badly and scratched it against a post, swearing. An old woman struggled to carry her bags to her car; Cassie helped. A small boy sat crying on a corner for awhile; Garfield listened to his story and offered support.

It was nearly midnight when they heard the protests. A woman's voice, trying to sound angry, but tinged with fear. Wonder Girl abd Beast Boy shared a glance before heading towards the sound, she flying high and silently, he creeping along the ground as a cat.

A woman was talking to three men. All of the men were clearly drunk and they weren't friendly; she was backed into a corner. "I said leave me alone, you jerk!" she snapped as one of the men reached for her arm.

"Come on Jessie," the man drawled, "I know you want me. Give us a kiss." He grabbed her elbow. She pulled away and stepped back, only to run right into a second man.

"Don't be like that," the second man said.

They'd seen enough. The second man was quickly caught in a lasso from the sky and yanked up away from the pavement. Garfield got into position behind the woman, leapt over her shoulder, and shifted into lion from before he hit the ground. (He didn't want to run _at_ the woman as a lion.) He roared. Suddenly, the alley was free of drunken creeps. Cassie dropped her victim unceremoniously on the ground and he ran off after his buddies, screaming.

Garfield immediately shifted into half-human form while Cassie landed, hands up and open. "We're here to help. I'm Wonder Girl, this is Beast Boy. You're perfectly safe now. Are you okay?"

The woman was backed against the wall behind her, staring at them. Slowly, she nodded.

"Would you like us to walk you home?" Cassie asked.

"No, I... I'm fine," the woman said faintly. "Thanks. I'm fine."

"Okay. We'll leave you then."

They left.

"Okay so that didn't go quite as well as it should have," Cassie said when they'd walked a couple of blocks away. They stopped around a corner; the woman might not want an escort but they were going to make sure nothing happened to her on the way home.

"What do you mean? We got rid of those thugs in like three seconds. Nobody got hurt. It was great."

"Yeah but we did scare the person we were saving. A lot, probably more than those creeps did. Next time we'll have to work on that."

"Next time?"

"Oh yeah. We need practise if we wanna prove our competence."

After making sure the woman got home okay, they parted ways. Gar turned into a mouse to sneak into his own bedroom. Small, quiet... nobody needed to know he'd been out late.

He almost made it.

"Argh! No fair, Sis!" he compained, morphing back to human in midair. M'Gann gently put him down.

"Do you have any idea how late it is?" she asked. "You have a curfew! What were you doing out there?"

_Saving people. Trying to help. Being a hero._ Gar opened his mouth to justify himself, to explain that even helping one person against a non-superpowered, non-worldthreatening attack was worth his time. He'd spend the rest of the night being lectured by M'Gann on responsibility and quietly seething because he knew that she'd been worried and he was wrong but he also knew that he'd done the right thing and she was just treating him like a kid. He couldn't be the best hero that he could be if everyone treated him like a kid.

He opened his mouth to explain, and then stopped.

It didn't matter whether M'Gann thought he'd acted like a hero. Her opinion changed nothing. She was upset he'd made her worry, and yes, he'd done that wrong. He'd saved a woman, and that he'd done right. Whether she was mad or forgiving or proud didn't change that. He loved to make her happy but it didn't change what was right and wrong. And people treating him like a kid didn't change his ability to be a hero. That was his responsibility, not theirs.

So he could argue all night, or he could try to make things better and go to bed.

"I... I lost track of time. I'm sorry, Sis. I didn't mean to make you worry."

M'Gann had clearly been expecting an argument. She paused, apparently stunned, and eventually said, "well don't let it happen again."

Gar thought of Cassie. "I won't." _Next time we'll have to wrap things up before curfew._


End file.
